Christie's budget plan to give property tax credit to senior and family making less 75k/r (rent, how much)

[bradykp]

Originally Posted by babo111

If I had to guess, in my opinion its probably beyond 250k combined for North NJ? I'd think 120-250k is considered middle class for North NJ.

In reality though, you are rich as what your mind think it is and what your debt situation is.

Here's my two examples...
One coworker of mine and his spouse makes about 300k combined and yet they are broke as hell. He is developer and salary of 130k and his wife is a vet with her own practice but they frigging own 3 houses across multiple states, 4 cars, 1 yacht, and 1 timeshare....in other words huge debt and crazy monthly cash flow required to maintain it all so he is pretty much broke because he has no cash in bank at all. Every paycheck they earn goes out to fund all of these assets and lifestyle. If my buddy or his spouse looses job and can't find one quick, they'll need to sell off their assets immediately.

Another example is opposite case. My former boss who is very frugal and ran his own business was a millionaire and I do mean millionaire as in having literally couple million of cash in bank never thought he was rich because in his mind, being rich meant being in ranks of a billionaire...not millionaire and thought being millionaire is the norm.

my wife and I are under the $250,000 mark, but i would say we're above the $200k mark combined. in a great year, we might be close to $250k but that's only recently. we've built up to this over the past 6.5 years. we bought a house. we purchased a brand new Acura in 2005, and a brand new Subaru Legacy in 2010. We buy clothes that we want. We go on vacation when we want. We bought nice furniture for our nursery. We bought nice furniture for our master bedroom. We pay our bills on time. We save a large chunk of change in 401k, money markets, Scottrade account, and rainy day fund. We eat out often. I don't know. Am I rich? or am I middle class? if i told my friends back home that i was middle class...a lot of them would probably not want to talk to me again. i don't know that i consider myself rich. certainly not wealthy. but i'm more than comfortable.

[CaptainNJ]

Originally Posted by bradykp

my wife and I are under the $250,000 mark, but i would say we're above the $200k mark combined. in a great year, we might be close to $250k but that's only recently. we've built up to this over the past 6.5 years. we bought a house. we purchased a brand new Acura in 2005, and a brand new Subaru Legacy in 2010. We buy clothes that we want. We go on vacation when we want. We bought nice furniture for our nursery. We bought nice furniture for our master bedroom. We pay our bills on time. We save a large chunk of change in 401k, money markets, Scottrade account, and rainy day fund. We eat out often. I don't know. Am I rich? or am I middle class? if i told my friends back home that i was middle class...a lot of them would probably not want to talk to me again. i don't know that i consider myself rich. certainly not wealthy. but i'm more than comfortable.

look at you with the fancy shmancy subaru and 401k! you are one of those evil rich people!

[bradykp]

Originally Posted by CaptainNJ

look at you with the fancy shmancy subaru and 401k! you are one of those evil rich people!

it's so fancy shmancy. actually, it's a nice bit of power. i love it. and i'm not one of the evil ones. i pay my taxes and i don't complain. but i am vocal and involved in what's going on with government.

[CaptainNJ]

Originally Posted by bradykp

it's so fancy shmancy. actually, it's a nice bit of power. i love it. and i'm not one of the evil ones. i pay my taxes and i don't complain. but i am vocal and involved in what's going on with government.

id say having a child has had some impact on my politics. i havent really moved much yet, but on certain social issues it has made me more of a conservative than a libertarian. i could pretend like i may not know best and we should all be free to decide, but i do know best. i heard some talk on the radio about the republicans trying to cut certain funding and of course pelosi comes back and says the republicans dont care about helping single mothers. a woman on the show said something like, maybe if we didnt help make it easier for woman to be single mothers there would be less of them. hmmmm maybe there is some truth to that. why help support bad families. now, i understand perfectly well that some people have bad situations and thats different than someone who is wreckless in their decisions and think they deserve equal help than maybe a widowed woman with kids. i hate to see kids suffer but maybe we do need to be more mindful of the environment in which our children are going to grow up. i used to not really think about that when i didnt really have to concern myself with the future of our country over generations but now i want my daughter/grandkids to have a good place to live in like i did.

i dont know, these thoughts are a little new to me. im not ready to argue them.

[Jellybean50]

Hmmmm... what makes a person "rich," how much many they make - or their net worth?

You can become a millionaire by putting away some of your paycheck from the time you start working - say age 16 - in an account you never touch, and doing that til you're say - 60.

Maybe your house is paid off, and someone with that $450,000 one owes about $400,000 on it.

What is rich?

[Informed Info]

Originally Posted by Jellybean50

Hmmmm... what makes a person "rich," how much many they make - or their net worth?

You can become a millionaire by putting away some of your paycheck from the time you start working - say age 16 - in an account you never touch, and doing that til you're say - 60.

Maybe your house is paid off, and someone with that $450,000 one owes about $400,000 on it.

What is rich?

Good question.

What is "middle class"?

Who are they and what did they do so wrong that they are about to be eradicated?

[doc1]

Originally Posted by Jellybean50

Hmmmm... what makes a person "rich," how much many they make - or their net worth?

You can become a millionaire by putting away some of your paycheck from the time you start working - say age 16 - in an account you never touch, and doing that til you're say - 60.

Maybe your house is paid off, and someone with that $450,000 one owes about $400,000 on it.

What is rich?

To many who love the thought of "making the rich pay more" it doesn't matter it it's income or accumulated wealth.

If it's significantly more than they have they want their politicians to grab it and give it away to others.

[cw30000]

Originally Posted by bradykp

my wife and I are under the $250,000 mark, but i would say we're above the $200k mark combined. in a great year, we might be close to $250k but that's only recently. we've built up to this over the past 6.5 years. we bought a house. we purchased a brand new Acura in 2005, and a brand new Subaru Legacy in 2010. We buy clothes that we want. We go on vacation when we want. We bought nice furniture for our nursery. We bought nice furniture for our master bedroom. We pay our bills on time. We save a large chunk of change in 401k, money markets, Scottrade account, and rainy day fund. We eat out often. I don't know. Am I rich? or am I middle class? if i told my friends back home that i was middle class...a lot of them would probably not want to talk to me again. i don't know that i consider myself rich. certainly not wealthy. but i'm more than comfortable.

Yeap. You are the evil rich people. You can pay your own tax

[Bideshi]

I'm liking this guy more and more. The elderly on fixed income and those with low income need the prop tax relief the most.

[bradykp]

Originally Posted by CaptainNJ

id say having a child has had some impact on my politics. i havent really moved much yet, but on certain social issues it has made me more of a conservative than a libertarian. i could pretend like i may not know best and we should all be free to decide, but i do know best. i heard some talk on the radio about the republicans trying to cut certain funding and of course pelosi comes back and says the republicans dont care about helping single mothers. a woman on the show said something like, maybe if we didnt help make it easier for woman to be single mothers there would be less of them. hmmmm maybe there is some truth to that. why help support bad families. now, i understand perfectly well that some people have bad situations and thats different than someone who is wreckless in their decisions and think they deserve equal help than maybe a widowed woman with kids. i hate to see kids suffer but maybe we do need to be more mindful of the environment in which our children are going to grow up. i used to not really think about that when i didnt really have to concern myself with the future of our country over generations but now i want my daughter/grandkids to have a good place to live in like i did.

i dont know, these thoughts are a little new to me. im not ready to argue them.

i'm not sure what they were speaking about specifically. there's been a lot of bashing of the gov't in recent days/weeks about treatment of women (some of it pointless since some of the proposals aren't going to go anywhere, some of it I agree with). i'm not going to defend pelosi, i don't like her very much. but depending on what she said, i may agree with her (still doesn't mean i like her). i think there's a difference between "making it easier for women to be single mothers" and "some people abusing a system that overall helps single mothers". whether we choose to tolerate the percentage of abuse (i assume at some level, you say it's no longer abuse, and more the norm?) is probably different for everyone...again, i'd have to know what they were actually talking about. but yeah, kids certainly change your outlook on things. i've had many of my views molded over the years for sure, and though I know you guys all jump to the conclusion that i'm a liberal because of the conversations i choose to partake in on here, i think you'd be surprised if you met me in person. i'm constantly trying to challenge my own way of thinking, as well as others. i think that's healthy. everyone has their ideals, beliefs, morals. it's good to talk about it, and try to make our city, our state, our country, a better place. not just for us, but for those that come after us, whether they be our child, or the child of a neighbor (the one we like of course!).